Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to beverage dispensing systems and more particularly to a complete beverage dispensing system that can dispense both cold and hot drinks.
Description of the Prior Art
There are a number of devices and techniques for dispensing a beverage such as, for example, a cup of coffee or tea from a capsule. In one approach a disposable container fits on top of a cup and has a compartment for receiving a beverage extract such as coffee with a large reservoir on top into which a person must pour boiling water. These devices can be disposable but expensive, the coffee is exposed to the air where it can easily get stale or contaminated, and they are not generally suitable for automatic coffee making or other beverage machines. Because the flow rate of beverage is generally slow, these devices are typically large relative to the volume of beverage dispensed. Also, these devices can be designed to be used upright and only the bottom area is available for filtration flow and this contributes to the slowness of the filtration process. In one construction, a filter is provided in a sealed receptacle and a support member is included intermediate the receptacle and filter which functions to support the filter. When the filter is wetted, it sags and conforms with the support member which has a hole in it to release the filtered beverage but otherwise blocks the output of the filter. Such a filter design used in an application where water is injected under pressure would provide low flow rates.
There are several known companies offering proprietary capsule based machines in the coffee and tea space, including Nestlé's Nespresso and Special T, Green Mountain Coffee Roaster's Keurig, Starbucks Verismo, Kraft's Tassimo, Sara Lee's Senseo, Nescafe's Dolce Gusto, Illy, Lavazza's Blue and Britta Yource. Mars Flavia and Esio are machines utilizing a pouch-style single use dispensing system. Additionally, there are several known companies operating single serving drink machines in the commercial environment, including PHSI's Interpure, Waterlogic's Innowave, Vertex's Charm, Keurig, Nestlé and Mars Flavia.
Currently, there are other machines attempting to commercialize a similar capsule/pod based single-serve point of use cold beverage system. For example, Omnifrio, acquired by Primo Water, uses a puncture mechanism, which punctures the top and bottom of the capsule allowing a syrup concentrate to drain out. Bevyz uses a pressure mechanism to pop open the capsule to enable a mixing process. The Esio Hot & Cold Beverage System uses a syrup pouch system and pumps drink mix out of the pouch to mix it with water outside of the packet. Yource by Brita uses a capsule based machine.
When cold drinks are dispensed in a system in which the beverage is prepared by mixing cold fluid, usually water, with a powder instead of a liquid concentrate, one significant challenge is that the powder will not dissolve effectively during the mixing process. This can lead to poor quality output from the beverage system and unsightly and possibly unhealthful residue in the machine itself. Improved systems for providing a hot, cold, ambient temperature, carbonated, still mixed beverage designed to enable the effective mixture of the powder with the liquid during dispensing providing for little or no residue, contamination, or cross contamination between beverages are described in U.S. application Ser. No. 13/293,043, U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/411,786, and International Application No. PCT/US2011/060050, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference. The present disclosure describes an additional embodiment for providing mixed beverages.
In addition, there is no machine or system in the prior art that can dispense both cold and hot drinks. It would be highly advantageous to have a single beverage dispensing machine that can receive either a hot drink or a cold drink capsule, process the capsule and dispense the desired hot or cold drink. While the hot and cold drink capsules can be identical in shape and size, it is advantageous to have them of different shapes and sizes. Maintaining the familiar hot drink capsule (such as the well-known coffee capsule used by Green Mountain Keurig) readily identifies it from the cold drink capsule used by LaVit LLC. This prevents mistakes by the user and makes it easier for the system to identify whether a cold drink or a hot drink is desired.